Video is where most websites do their best storytelling — and where accessibility most often gets skipped. A page full of text can be read by a screen reader out of the box. A video, left alone, is silent for someone who can't hear it and invisible for someone who can't see it.
The good news: making video accessible comes down to three things — captions, transcripts, and audio descriptions — and each one is more approachable than it sounds. Here's what each does, when you need it, and how to build it into your workflow without slowing your content down.
Captions vs. subtitles: they're not the same thing
The terms get used interchangeably, but they solve different problems.
Subtitles translate or transcribe dialogue for people who can hear the audio but don't understand the language. Captions are written for people who can't hear the audio at all — so they include the non-speech sounds that carry meaning: [door slams], [phone ringing], [upbeat music], and speaker labels when it isn't obvious who's talking.
If your explainer video ends with a customer saying "it just works" over applause, subtitles give viewers the quote. Captions give them the applause too — and the applause is half the point.
One more distinction worth knowing: closed captions can be toggled on and off by the viewer, while open captions are burned into the video itself. Closed captions are usually the better choice — viewers keep control, and the caption text stays available to search engines and platforms.
Transcripts: the quiet workhorse
A transcript is a full text version of everything in the video — dialogue, speaker names, and meaningful sounds — published on the page alongside the player.
Transcripts serve more people than you'd expect. Deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors can read at their own pace. People who are deafblind can access the content through a braille display — a transcript is often the only way video content reaches them. And plenty of visitors without disabilities simply prefer scanning a transcript to watching eight minutes of video at their desk.
There's a practical bonus: search engines can't watch your video, but they can read your transcript. Publishing one puts every word of your content to work for discovery — often the easiest SEO win a content team can ship in an afternoon.
Audio descriptions: narrating what the eyes would catch
Audio description fills in visual information for viewers who are blind or have low vision. A narrator uses the natural pauses in the audio to describe what matters on screen: "She signs the contract and slides it across the table."
Not every video needs it. A talking-head interview where everything important is spoken aloud is already accessible by ear. Audio description matters when the visuals carry meaning the audio doesn't — on-screen text, demonstrations, charts, or action that's never mentioned aloud.
The lightest-weight approach is to build description into your script from the start. Instead of a presenter saying "just click here, then here," write "click the blue Export button in the top-right corner, then choose PDF." Now the video describes itself, and you may not need a separate description track at all.
Live vs. recorded: different rules, different tools
Accessibility guidelines treat these differently, and so should your workflow.
Recorded video is where accuracy is expected. You have time to edit captions, fix names and jargon, write a clean transcript, and add description where it's needed. WCAG's baseline (Level AA) calls for captions and audio description on prerecorded video.
Live video — webinars, streams, live events — needs real-time captions. Human captioners (often called CART providers) remain the accuracy gold standard; automated live captioning has improved dramatically and is far better than nothing, but it still fumbles names, accents, and technical terms. A solid pattern: use live captioning during the event, then publish a corrected recording with edited captions and a transcript afterward.
Tools and a workflow that actually sticks
You don't need an enterprise media department. Most teams get there with three categories of tools:
- Automatic captioning, built into most major video platforms, gives you a fast first draft — typically usable but never publish-ready. Names, acronyms, and product terms will need fixing.
- Caption editors, either built into those same platforms or available as standalone tools, let you correct that draft and adjust timing in minutes.
- Professional captioning and description services are worth the cost for high-stakes content: legal, medical, flagship marketing, anything with a long shelf life.
A workflow that holds up over time:
- Script with accessibility in mind — describe visuals aloud where you can.
- Auto-caption for the draft, human-edit before publishing. For a five-minute video, editing usually takes ten to fifteen minutes.
- Publish the transcript on the same page as the video.
- Make it a checklist item, not an afterthought — no video ships without captions and a transcript.
Video is one piece of the page
Accessible video sitting on an inaccessible page doesn't get anyone very far — the player controls, surrounding headings, and links all have to work too. That's where AllAccessible helps: an audit surfaces accessibility issues across your pages, AllAccessible AI drafts suggested fixes, and your team reviews and approves every change before it goes live. Steady progress, with people making the final call.
Get started with AllAccessible and make the whole page — video included — work for everyone.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What's the difference between captions and subtitles?
- Subtitles transcribe or translate dialogue for people who can hear the audio but don't understand the language. Captions are written for people who can't hear the audio at all, so they also include meaningful non-speech sounds like [door slams] or [applause] and speaker labels when it isn't obvious who's talking.
- Do all videos need audio description?
- No. A talking-head interview where everything important is spoken aloud is already accessible by ear. Audio description matters when visuals carry meaning the audio doesn't — on-screen text, demonstrations, charts, or action never mentioned aloud. The lightest-weight fix is scripting descriptions in from the start, like saying 'click the blue Export button in the top-right corner' instead of 'click here.'
- Are automatic captions good enough to publish?
- They're a fast first draft, not a finished product — names, acronyms, and product terms will need fixing. Editing auto-captions for a five-minute video usually takes ten to fifteen minutes, and for high-stakes content like legal or flagship marketing, professional captioning services are worth the cost. For live events, human captioners (CART providers) remain the accuracy gold standard.
- Why publish a transcript if the video already has captions?
- Transcripts serve people captions can't: deafblind visitors can read them through a braille display — often the only way video content reaches them — and many visitors simply prefer scanning text. There's also an SEO bonus: search engines can't watch your video, but they can index every word of a transcript on the page.